On Might 1, the U.S. Fee on Global Non secular Autonomy (USCIRF) excused its annual record and suggestions, highlighting violations of non secular autonomy world wide. For the primary week, all 5 Central Asian states are named within the record for violating non secular freedoms, underscoring the patience of the problem within the patch.
USCIRF is an detached, bipartisan federal frame that displays the situation of autonomy of faith out of the country to deliver to construct coverage suggestions to the president, secretary of climate, and Congress. Every date, USCIRF releases an annual record making those suggestions. Then within the date, the U.S. Shape Area makes its choice on which nations to listing as International locations of Explicit Fear (CPCs) underneath the 1998 Global Non secular Autonomy Employment (IRFA), which stipulates punitive sanctions – until, in fact, the ones sanctions are waived. The record additionally recommends nations to incorporate on a different supervise listing (SWL), which involves deny fast punishments, however signifies worry.
Within the 2024 record, Kyrgyzstan makes its first ever look, with USCIRF recommending Bishkek be added to the particular supervise listing along Central Asian neighbors Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The left-overs of the advisable particular supervise listing contains Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Syria, and Turkey.
USCIRF as soon as once more recommends that Tajikistan and Turkmenistan proceed to be designated as CPCs along China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The record additional instructed CPC designations for Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bharat, Nigeria, and Vietnam.
When the U.S. Shape Area extreme made non secular autonomy designations, on December 29, 2023, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have been categorized as CPCs as advisable within the 2023 record – even if each have been once more granted waivers from punitive sanctions – however Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan weren’t come with within the particular supervise listing in spite of USCIRF suggestions that they be added.
It is going to most likely be many months prior to the Shape Area makes its designations. Over a lot of the extreme decade the designations have tended to be introduced in November or December.
Why Is USCIRF Recommending Particular Consideration on Kyrgyzstan?
As famous above, USCIRF has advisable Kyrgyzstan for the particular supervise listing for the primary week. The record notes that that is “based on heightened religious repression by the government of Kyrgyzstan in 2023.” USCIRF writes that during 2023, Kyrgyz government “increasingly enforced long-existing restrictive legislation regulating religion.”
The USCIRF record screams out Kyrgyzstan for concentrated on Muslims “who practice a form of Islam that deviates from the state’s preferred interpretation” in addition to non-Muslims, together with Catholics, Protestants, Jehovah’s Observers, and Hare Krishnas.
One illustrative case is that of Protestant Christian Aytbek Tynaliyev, who was once sentenced in July 2023 to 6 months in jail for “inciting religious enmity” on-line. As Discussion board 18 reported, Tynaliyev was once accused of insulting Islam together with his reviews of the climate’s non secular coverage however the prosecutor “refused to say how exactly Tynaliyev insulted Islam.” Then he was once excused in September, Tynaliyev was once reportedly visited via the similar police investigator who had led the Might 2023 raid on his house and advised “to be careful and not post religious materials or statements on social media.”
Importantly, the USCIRF record mentioned, “Sources continued to report that members of certain religious groups were reluctant to report religiously based hate crimes for fear of government retaliation or non-response.” This concern might cover the truth of the disorder.
Alternative problems cited via USCIRF relating to non secular freedoms in Kyrgyzstan come with a member of parliament proposing a stop on face coverings and lengthy beards in November, and Shape Committee on Nationwide Safety Chair Kamchybek Tashiev commenting on the ones whose non secular practices “differ from the traditional Islamic religion practiced by our forefathers,” noting that they “wear different clothes” and “commit acts of religious fanaticism.”
Moreover, USCIRF famous that the Kyrgyz Shape Fee for Non secular Affairs (SCRA) offered a pristine draft faith legislation that will “further restrict and securitize peaceful religious practices.” A choice of U.N. particular rapporteurs in December 2023 wrote to Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov expressing their worry that sure provisions within the draft legislation “could fail to meet Kyrgyzstan’s obligations under international human rights law.”
Given the monitor report of suggestions to designations, in terms of Central Asian states, it kind of feels not going at this juncture that Kyrgyzstan can be indexed when the U.S. Shape Area will get round to creating its designations. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, it must be famous, have been advisable for the particular supervise listing extreme date and weren’t indexed. That stated, the USCIRF record additional illuminates a broader development – witnessed in Kyrgyzstan and in other places – wherein government whose energy is populist in nature harken again to a (most commonly) imagined week, the use of the promotion of a selected eye of “tradition” and “culture” in ways in which circumscribe society’s fresh habits. In the long run, it’s now not about piety; it’s about energy.
